Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s final DLC sets up the story of the next game

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s last post-launch expansion maybe-kinda released one week early? The original word from Ubisoft was that it’d arrive Dec. 6, which is next Tuesday, but it showed up yesterday.

Whether this was a mistake or things got approved earlier than expected, Ubisoft played it quite drolly on social media, saying “an unforeseen glitch in the Animus” sent title update 1.6.2 to everyone earlier than announced. The real news, however, is the special guest star in an unannounced set of extra missions, called “Shared History.”

Meet Roshan, a character we’ll learn more about in Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the next game in the 15-year-old franchise, slated for a 2023 launch. Mirage’s main character, Basim, already appears in Valhalla. (He has a confusing and somewhat spoiler-y backstory, but suffice it to say, Basim serves as a mentor to the player-character Eivor.)

Roshan, it turns out, is a master assassin and mentor to Basim. In Valhalla, she can be found in Ravensthorpe, waiting to give a mission to Eivor; their dialogue foreshadows some story details of Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Shared History, along with the previously announced “The Final Chapter” are the final adventures for Eivor in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage was confirmed by Ubisoft at the beginning of September and formally introduced during the Ubisoft Forward livestream event on Sept. 10. It’s expected to launch in 2023 though no more specific date or window has been announced.

Mirage originally began as an expansion idea for Valhalla, and is being broken out by Ubisoft Bordeaux to mark the series’ 15th anniversary year. It has been pitched as a return to the series’ roots in the Middle East more than 1,000 years ago. Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be set in Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate of the late 9th Century.